Prof Michael Behe combines the skill of careful research scientist with that of popular communicator. His lectures are informative, entertaining, lavishly-illustrated and entirely accessible to the layman. He is also at ease with questions from his audience.

I would like to see someone... let's call him "Louis" - arrest Behe for violating the laws against "Silly Talks".

I am pre-banninated.

After a piece of recent unfortunate business there's been a bit of attention from the various Security Services. Nothing too serious. I'm sure it'll all be sorted out soon and they'll stop torturing me any time now. I think they misunderstood my intentions, I merely made the comment that if bashing the bishop was fun, maybe I should try pulverising the pope. This was not taken in the spirit it was intended, and coincided with the recent visit of Il Papa. Some officers felt my remarks showed dangerously dissident tendancies or something.

Understanding how protein structures and functions have diversified is a central goal in molecular evolution. Surveys of very divergent proteins from model organisms, however, are often insufficient to determine the features of ancestral proteins and to reveal the evolutionary events that yielded extant diversity. Here we combine genomic, biochemical, functional, structural, and phylogenetic analyses to reconstruct the early evolution of nuclear receptors (NRs), a diverse superfamily of transcriptional regulators that play key roles in animal development, physiology, and reproduction. By inferring the structure and functions of the ancestral NR, we show—contrary to current belief—that NRs evolved from a ligand-activated ancestral receptor that existed near the base of the Metazoa, with fatty acids as possible ancestral ligands. Evolutionary tinkering with this ancestral structure generated the extraordinary diversity of modern receptors: sensitivity to different ligands evolved because of subtle modifications of the internal cavity, and ligand-independent activation evolved repeatedly because of various mutations that stabilized the active conformation in the absence of ligand. Our findings illustrate how a mechanistic dissection of protein evolution in a phylogenetic context can reveal the deep homology that links apparently “novel” molecular functions to a common ancestral form.

--------------Church burning ebola boy

FTK: I Didn't answer your questions because it beats the hell out of me.

PaV: I suppose for me to be pried away from what I do to focus long and hard on that particular problem would take, quite honestly, hundreds of thousands of dollars to begin to pique my interest.

Understanding how protein structures and functions have diversified is a central goal in molecular evolution. Surveys of very divergent proteins from model organisms, however, are often insufficient to determine the features of ancestral proteins and to reveal the evolutionary events that yielded extant diversity. Here we combine genomic, biochemical, functional, structural, and phylogenetic analyses to reconstruct the early evolution of nuclear receptors (NRs), a diverse superfamily of transcriptional regulators that play key roles in animal development, physiology, and reproduction. By inferring the structure and functions of the ancestral NR, we show—contrary to current belief—that NRs evolved from a ligand-activated ancestral receptor that existed near the base of the Metazoa, with fatty acids as possible ancestral ligands. Evolutionary tinkering with this ancestral structure generated the extraordinary diversity of modern receptors: sensitivity to different ligands evolved because of subtle modifications of the internal cavity, and ligand-independent activation evolved repeatedly because of various mutations that stabilized the active conformation in the absence of ligand. Our findings illustrate how a mechanistic dissection of protein evolution in a phylogenetic context can reveal the deep homology that links apparently “novel” molecular functions to a common ancestral form.

I didn't read it all through but enough to get the gist and it looked real good, but anyway swearing in church is frowned upon.

This headline has been sitting on my Google News page for over a week now:

UK Centre for Intelligent Design claims it will focus on science, not religion

Today it was joined by [URL=http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/would-you-adam-and-eve-it-top-scientists-tell-scottish-pupils-the-bible-is-true-1.1060545?

localLinksEnabled=false]this one[/URL], referring to the same outfit:

Would you Adam and Eve it? Top scientists tell Scottish pupils: the Bible is true

Surely some mistake!

Edit: fixed second link

The photo caption in the fist article:

Quote

Dr Alastair Noble, director of the Centre for Intelligent Design in Glasgow, says ID is 'consistently misrepresented as a religious position'

From the second article:

Quote

“We are definitely not targeting schools...” Dr Noble said...

And then:

Quote

Dr Alastair Noble is...currently education officer for CARE, a Christian charity which campaigns for more faith teaching in schools.

One measure of a paper's significance is the number of times it is cited by the subsequent literature:

Quote

[The Centre for Intelligent Design]'s president, Professor Norman Nevin OBE – a geneticist at Queen’s University in Belfast – told a meeting in the city earlier this year he believed Adam was “a real historical person”. He also said: “Genesis chapter 1-11, which indeed many Darwinists and evolutionists say is myth or legend, I believe is historical, and it is cited 107 times in the New Testament, and Jesus refers himself to the early chapters of Genesis at least 25 times.”

ASSF!

--------------Given that we are all descended from Adam and Eve...genetic defects as a result of intra-family marriage would not begin to crop up until after the first few dozen generations. - Dr. Hugh Ross

It looks like the IDCreationist abroad are every bit as serious about doing that sciencey stuff as they are in the USA.

They are serious. Their research has led them to develop TARDIS technology, thus giving them infinite research capacity inside whilst keeping a low profile on the outside.

Darwinism is doomed, I tell you. Doomed!

--------------"[A scientific theory] describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept Nature as She is - absurd."- Richard P. Feynman

It's alright, we know about it. Nice photos Kattarina, they emphasise how badly run this organisation is, being no more than a front for YEC's.

The glasgow meeting is only Ł6 so I'd be tempted to go to that. Anyone else want to?

I'd love to go ... am really severly tempted to book a flight. Must check my bank account!I'm wondering how the postie is supposed to find them. I guess that the "mission" allows them to have their letters sent to them.

That kin dof building will probably either have someone on a front desk who'll take the mail, or else pigeon holes for each company. Thus, no problem at all. Do we know whose name they are renting under?

I hadn't realized that Richards has burrowed quite so deep into the profit center that is rightwing US politics:

Quote

Jay Richards is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute and a Contributing Editor of The American at the American Enterprise Institute... has been a Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute. ... His previous book was Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem. ...executive producer of several documentaries, including The Call of the Entrepreneur, The Birth of Freedom, and Effective Stewardship

Prof Michael Behe combines the skill of careful research scientist with that of popular communicator. His lectures are informative, entertaining, lavishly-illustrated and entirely accessible to the layman. He is also at ease with questions from his audience.